Friday, February 6, 2015

In its annual American Freshman Survey, UCLA researchers polled over 150,000 incoming freshmen at 227 colleges and universities. This year's result on marriage:

The survey last asked about same-sex
marriage in 2012. In the interim, support for same-sex couples having
the legal right to marry has increased 6.5 percentage points to 81.5%.
This increase covers a span of time where the U.S. Supreme Court struck
down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s state
ban on same-sex marriage. Additionally, since these Supreme Court
decisions, state-level same-sex marriage bans have fallen across the
country in U.S. Circuit and District courts; as of January 2015, the
U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up four pending cases from the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Figure 10 breaks support for same-sex
marriage down by political ideology. The findings show that only
students who identify as “far right” do not support same-sex marriage.
Just 44.3% of students identified as “far right” either “agreed
somewhat” or “agreed strongly” that same-sex couples should have the
legal right to marry. This figure contrasts with 56.6% of “conservative”
students, 84.7% of “middle-of-the-road” students, 93.9% of “liberal”
students, and 90.5% of “far left” students. It is clear that same-sex
marriage is no longer an issue for the vast majority of entering college
freshmen.

The wonderful challenge of Buddhism is that it does not offer any absolute formulas for virtuousness. In the Silabatta Sutta,
the Buddha asks Ananda if every precept and practice taught by the
dharma is holy. Ananda replies, 'Lord, that is not to be answered with a
categorical answer.'

"By
deepening the practice of self-observation, we may reach the surprising
conclusion that we feel pleasure through our negative actions in the
world. There is a pleasure connected to the negative situation that
repeats itself in our lives. Our vital energy is invested into this
destructive action. As we deepen even further into this practice of
self-observation, we realize that this may be the only way we know how
to feel pleasure. Oftentimes, the positive manifestation of pleasure is a
threat to the human being. Since we are so identified with this
negativity, we suffer the terror of being annihilated in its absence.
Unconsciously, we believe that letting go of this negativity would mean
death."

The chains of desire pull us into a life of frustration and
suffering, while renunciation cuts those chains. Renunciation, though
often understood to mean 'giving up,' is, more accurately, the
willingness to experience things as they are, not as we want them to be.
Here you discover true freedom, the deep, quiet joy that has always
been present in you.